The clear words of the Rambam reverberate in my ears when the above anecdotes continues to occur, to my utter disbelief and dismay [Laws of Deot 3/1]: “Said our sages- the Nazarite, that only forbade wine on himself, needs atonement. How much more so one that prevents himself/herself from everything. Therefore, our sages commanded that one shall not prevent himself except from that which the Torah forbade….and the sages stated; Is it not enough that which the Torah forbade, you go ahead and forbid yourself from other things…!”

We are commanded to be steadfast Jews, adhering to the laws of the Torah, be they logical laws, incomprehensible ones, convenient laws or inconvenient laws. Some are biblical, other rabbinic, and yes – some are pure stringencies needed and warranted in certain situations. While keeping such a lifestyle is far from easy, we dare not create a new religion in which we turn to be more “frum” than the Torah demanded. But even more so, we dare not create a lifestyle, like the women above, which runs counter to the Torah itself! Let us never forget the confession many say on the eve of Yom-Kippur, moments before the onset of “Kol Nidrei” fills the air, as part of the famous תפילה זכה:

How can I come before you and what remedy can I ask for?

I was life a rebellious son, like a slave rebelling against his teacher.

That which you have purified I have deemed impure, and that which is impure I deemed pure.

That which you have allowed I have forbidden, and that which you have forbidden I have allowed.

That which you loved I hated and that which you hated I loved.

That which you have been lenient on I have been stringent, and that which you have been stringent I have been lenient…

About the Author:Rabbi Yehoshua Grunstein is Director of training and placement at The Straus-Amiel Institute at Ohr Torah Stone.

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And to not accept a chumra is to be an apikorus. Ahh, to live in a world of black & white with no grey: no thought, no decisions, no individuation–one halacha fits all! And that halacha is no longer based in Torah or Shulchan Aruch but whatever stringency one can find (e.g. the moslims cover their women with a chador, now we should, too!)

This author cites examples of Segulos and calls them chumros, thus throwing anyone who won't listen to a woman sing under the bus with Esrog-eating-women-in-labor. Nice way out of dealing with the breaches of halacha in your own community.

As the worse in now behind us, and yet with restorations efforts still ahead of us, I believe that the terms utilized so widely this week to describe a terrible predicament should force us to reconsider their use when, thankfully, tragedy doesn’t strike. Though my heart and soul are with those hurt by the storm, I am disturbed that so many of these very adjectives are commonly used to describe common occurrences, a far cry from the critical situation that so many Americans on the East Coast are facing.

A leisurely Shabbat stroll around town recently turned a calming experience into a rather upsetting one, as graffiti sprayed on quite a few buildings in my neighborhood defaced the beautiful Jerusalem stone with the words; “Dabru Ivrit/Speak Hebrew”!

“It is a Sabbath of Sabbaths for you, and you shall afflict yourselves, It is an eternal statute” (Vayikra 16:31). This is how our Torah sums up the upcoming experience of Yom Kippur: a Sabbath of all Sabbaths. Rather than use the more colloquially known “Yom HaKippurim,” The Day of Atonement, the Torah reading of Yom Kippur morning uses the above term to summarize the twenty-five hour experience we are about to step into.

You’ve seen the scene before – the congregants are silent, the tension can be cut with a butter knife, all eyes are peeled on the bimah in the center, two blessings are uttered, and the silence is pierced….by the most primitive horn one could find!

As the year is coming to an end, with endless days filled with doing the very same commandments, we besiege G-d on each remaining day, asking for one vital ingredient for the one yet to come: May we never get used to our routine.